Capital Eye Opener, Sept. 11: Primaries in Three States, Cash from Trash Hauler and More

PRIMARY DAY, THEN THE HARD PART: It’s congressional primary day in Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and while there’s little doubt about who will prevail in any of the races, several of the likely winners will go on to extremely competitive general election contests.

According to the Cook Political Report, New Hampshire Republican Reps. Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass, as well as Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, are all in races that are rated toss-ups. Not all have the stereotypical incumbent v. challenger campaign finance profile, though. Bass, for instance, has raised about $700,000 less than his Democratic opponent, Ann Kuster. Leadership PACs have given him more than any other industry group, nearly $134,000, perhaps reflecting concern among fellow Republicans about Bass’ prospects. And his No. 1 donor? The Environmental Defense Fund — highly unusual for a Republican, but Bass has frequently broken with his party on environmental issues.

In other ways, Bass’ profile vis-a-vis Kuster’s is more reflective of the general rule that incumbency attracts large donors and institutional PACs. Just 2 percent of Bass’ contributions have come from donors of $200 or less, compared with 24 percent of Kuster’s. And while Kuster has raised 16 percent of her total from PACs, Bass has relied on them for 64 percent of his funds thus far.

The other two races are more in keeping with the usual pattern of incumbent outraising challenger. Guinta, up against former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, has raised $1.4 million to her $804,000. While Shea-Porter has raised 27 percent of her funds from $200-and-under contributors, Guinta’s comparable share is only 3 percent. PAC contributions clock in at 23 percent of Shea-Porter’s total and 41 percent of Guinta’s; as in Bass’ case, GOP leadership PACs were the top industry donors to Guinta.

Cicilline, a freshman, will be up against former state police superintendent Brendan Doherty. Their most recent FEC reports show that Cicilline had outraised Doherty, but Doherty had the cash-on-hand advantage, $609,000 to $483,000. Small donors accounted for just 7 percent of Cicilline’s total funds, but 18 percent of Doherty’s. PAC money accounted for 24 percent of the former Providence mayor’s haul and just 10 percent of the former cop’s.

WASTE NOT: Two magazines — Earth Island Journal and Mother Jones — have been talking trash lately, specifically for-profit trash collection. That’s an area where Waste Management Inc. is the biggest dog on the block.

Among its other activities, the company has been working to overturn state bans on putting compostable material (such as yard waste) in landfills. The laws are designed to preserve landfill space — but Waste Management, which hauls trash and operates landfills, has little interest in that. The company played a key role, according to Earth Island Journal, in pushing to reverse the bans in Florida and Georgia in recent years, and is trying to do the same elsewhere.

At the national level, Waste Management has spent $1.2 million since the beginning of 2011 lobbying the government, including the House and Senate during consideration of the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011. That bill, which would delay rules setting new air pollution emission standards for boilers and incinerators, was passed by the House last year even as the Environmental Protection Agency argued it would result in 20,000 additional premature deaths. The Senate has not followed suit.

H. Wayne Huizenga, Waste Management’s founder, and his wife Marti are longtime political donors. They’ve given more than $540,000 in federal contributions since 2004, almost all of it to Republican candidates and causes — including $50,000 to American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-inspired super PAC, in 2010 and large amounts to Republican party committees.

According to National Journal Daily, an outfit called CAPE PAC — the Coalition of Americans for Political Equality PAC — had been buying Google ads promoting its raft of look-alike candidate sites that led some unwary viewers, and even seasoned pros, to believe they were contributing to, say Allen West, Mitt Romney, Dave Camp or some other Republican candidate.

It’s impossible to tell how many of the nearly 3,000 donors who had given more than $570,000 to CAPE PAC as of June 30 had done so inadvertantly. But as of that date, the PAC hadn’t made any contributions to candidates, as most PACs do, or made any independent expenditures. It had sent nearly half its receipts to two mysterious companies — Fly-Ur-Flag and GoMobile Technology — that didn’t even have websites until they received the money from CAPE PAC. The PAC’s chairman, Jeff Loyd, a former Republican county chairman in Arizona, refused an interview.

The disappearance of the faux sites — which mentioned CAPE PAC in very small print in the top right-hand corner, but otherwise looked very much like candidate websites — doesn’t mean the overall problem has been eradicated, though. The Federal Election Commission has been concerned for years about the ease with which fraud artists can set up official-looking sites and reap donations for themselves.

So look sharp when donating online. Better yet, advises a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, for whom CAPE PAC had a look-alike site until yesterday, call a campaign before making a contribution to doublecheck a site’s authenticity.

Got a tip or news link to pass along? We want to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

Washington reporter Viveca Novak joined the Center in December 2011 as editorial and communications director; her duties include running the OpenSecrets Blog, fielding press inquiries and developing media partnerships. Viveca has been deputy director of FactCheck.org and a Washington correspondent for Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal. She has won a number of journalism awards, including Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. In 2014, she was awarded, with colleague Robert Maguire, the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Online Journalism for a series of stories published on OpenSecrets Blog. In 2005, she co-authored a book, "Inside the Wire," about the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo. Viveca has a degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University; in addition, she completed a Fellowship in Law for Journalists at Yale Law School.

Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. To request permission for commercial use, please contact us.